Removing a result from Google is not the same as removing information from the internet. The page stays where it is, and the website owner is the one who can delete it. Google's routes decide whether, and for which searches, the page shows up in its results.
Pick the right route
Each route covers one kind of information. A request on the wrong form wastes time and can be refused for that reason alone.
- Phone number, home address or email in a result: Results about you, or Google's private information form. Google says its personal content policies apply globally.
- Government ID numbers, bank or card numbers, images of your signature or ID, medical records, passwords, or doxxing: the personal content removal form.
- The page was already corrected or deleted, but Google still shows the old version: the Refresh Outdated Content tool.
- True information that no longer belongs next to your name, if you have a connection to a European country (for example residence or citizenship): a right-to-be-forgotten request.
- Inaccurate information: ask the site to correct it and include it in your request to Google, with reliable evidence. If it is defamatory or there is a dispute, talk to a lawyer before writing to the site or to Google.
Results about you
Results about you finds results that show your home address, phone number or email, lets you request their removal and alerts you when new ones appear. Open it at myactivity.google.com/results-about-you or from the profile menu in the Google app. In February 2026 Google added government ID numbers such as passport, driver's licence and Social Security numbers in the U.S., and says it is working to bring this to more regions.
Google says some features are rolling out in certain markets for users over 18 and does not publish a country list. Some results may stay, such as government, education, news or business sites, and the information remains on the source page.
The EU right to be forgotten
If you have a connection to a European country, such as residence or citizenship, you can ask Google to stop showing pages about you in searches for your name when the information is inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive. Google weighs your privacy against the public interest, looking at your role in public life, the source, how old the content is, whether it is true and whether it involves sensitive data.
- 1. Search your name and its common variations, and copy the exact address of each result.
- 2. For each one, write two or three sentences on what it says, how old it is and why it no longer belongs next to your name.
- 3. Open the request form from Google's right-to-be-forgotten overview page.
- 4. Give the country, the search query (usually your full name) and a contact email. Google checks your connection to a European country, such as residence or citizenship, and may ask for more information, including ID.
- 5. Keep a dated copy of the request. If Google refuses or does not answer, you can ask your national data protection authority to review it.
The 2019 Google v CNIL judgment says Google is not required to delist outside the EU but must seriously discourage access from within it; Google says it uses location signals to restrict access from your country. Companies and other legal entities usually have no right to delisting.
When a request is unlikely to work
Recent, accurate news about your professional conduct, recent court cases and information about a public role are rarely removed. Old, spent convictions, acquittals and accusations proven false are different: Google treats them as factors in favour of delisting. Where results stay, the route is to publish accurate, current context on pages you control so that it ranks first. That is the job of a name audit and a reputation plan, not a form.